There's a lovely ritual for beginning your magical wellness practice, which I plan to do this week on pp.22-23 of the book, but for now, I'm going to clip on to the introductory questions, to help the reader firm up in their mind what they want to get from this practice. These are my answers.
***
What are your top 3 wellness goals and how can your magic relate to them?
- To help my very arthritic right hip feel more mobile and flexible - this started to be a problem in my late 30s, but now I'm 52, the last year or so, it's really picked up. It makes it difficult to sit in my favourite cross-legged position, and difficult to find a comfy position in bed. In the summer months when I do long hours both at a desk and in the resturant kitchen (the 2 jobs) I can feel so achey at the end of a 10-14 hour work day that I am taking double doses of already double dosed painkillers. I'd like to try and fix that as much as I'm able. I'm too young for a hip replacemnt (the NHS specialist tells me), so I'm on my own with this.
- to get some consistent energy all day - since I was young I've had very fluctuating energy; I find it difficult to stay asleep (very light sleeper - which was only compounded by having 2 children). I find mornings horribly difficult, as a night owl - I feel as if I only come into proper wide awake consciousness at about 8 p.m. I'd stay up till 3 every morning if I could, as night is when I feel creative too. But I'm up at 6 every morning except weekends, so that's not really doable. I'm in bed by 10.30ish, reading till 11 or 12, then sleep. I know nutrition has alot to do with my energy levels too - I need to cut as much of the ultra processed foods (that I love!) as I can, and cook from scratch a lot more (that last will be a real challenge in summer as I'm so work busy, and precious time away is family oriented). I'd like to have as many vegan days as I can, and vegetarian the rest. I think this will help too.
- I'd like to feel a lot more calm and stable - resilient, less reactive to people, events and my own thoughts - I have always been what's described as 'too sensitive' (ahh...the chronic invalidation of the introverted HSP!), and I've always had a sense that I'm really porous, and my mood/state of mind is almost paper thin, as if anything can break it and send me hurtling off in a usually unpleasant direction. Lots of overthinking. A sense of core, a place inside that's immune or unrelated to everything else is a goal. Somewhere to take a breath and recalibrate. Lots of my readings of Buddhism and Stoicism, and to an extent Existentialism have been very helpful conceptually (see Wikipedia pages for introductions to these philosophies). But I can't as yet get in the habit of it, that would be good.
- In terms of magic helping thse goals. Well. Making proper time for gentle yoga hip opening routines, and qi gong would be an excellent start. Doing them with loving intent toward my body would be good. In terms of energy - Krystle has a most excellent way in her work of stressing the correspondences for every food/ingredient used, and making sure they align with and feed into the goal needed - so deliberate cooking, careful ingredient selection and making sure to cook consciously would help both energy and my goal of greater stability mentally (lots of magnesium and B12!).
Meditation has long been a tool of witchery as well as the philosophical disciplines I'm drawn to, so this and guided visualisation would be helpful I suspect. Again, not just 'done' but consciously done with intent and goodwill. Small actions that will feed into a larger whole. A lot of the tools that would help energy would also help a greater sense of inner calm and resilience: consistency as much as possible would be key. I'm very aware that in the lead up to summer, I'll need to try and distil whatever routines I get into to make them doable in sections, or on the fly or with the small time slots I have between works and family. I think a lot of what I will end up doing will be classed as self-care with spirituality at its centre.
What aspect of yourself (physical, mental or spiritual) needs the most work?
Tempted to say all (as the Inertia Goddess of Armchair Reading Witchcraft!) but mental probably - as a consistently improving mental attitude would assist the other two. On the other hand, some days my mind is very sad or cross and I can't seem to shift it, so on those days I tend to focus on doing right by my body, to help the mind that way. I often feel my spirituality is very neglected - I read and don't DO. So beginning regular habits of these (meditation, yoga, ritual work, service to causes I love) would probably be very beneficial.
Are there physical symptoms you suffer from that you'd like to alleviate, or any specific body systems that need strengthening? What magical tools may help here?
Oops, already answered this in the first one! Arthritis and my general musculo skelatal system would be a good thing to tame and help to flow better. I have also had bad migraines since I was 13. It would be amazing to get greater freedom from those.
***
I'm going to take the next lot of answers to the next post, so each blog peice doesn't get too long. I have trouble finding the time to think and write, so I'm pretty sure you as the reader are also busy...
Comments
Post a Comment